Greg A. HillWe are/the Land/is Us
© Greg A. Hill
The New Media Creation Residency for Indigenous Artist(s) Program is made possible with the support of the Conseil des arts de Montréal.
During his residency at OBORO, Greg A. Hill is expanding his research and findings on data transformation—data converted to object(s), sound, light, installation to express and communicate experiences of being in/with/on the Land. The artist seeks to find ways to generate thinking and consideration of one’s place in relation to the Land and our non-human relations. Hill sees this as a process of recording aspects of a physical experience of place to digital media and then converting this media into objects, sound, light that work together as an installation to transpose experience of one place into a new one such as a gallery setting.
Since 2013, Hill has been recording his human-powered activities on the land in the vicinity of his home, next to the forests of Gatineau Park in Chelsea, Quebec. Over this period, he has logged well over 3000 activities, which when viewed over a 3D map of the area creates a geo-contoured latticework representing his movements on trails and through the forests in all seasons. During these excursions, he regularly makes digital images, as well as video and sound recordings, that operate as documents of moments in time, experienced at a particular place, as well as capturing a semblance of the environment and mood of being in that place at that moment.
For Hill, using digital and other forms of data to communicate experiences of Land is a way of softening the binary of 1s and 0s towards a decolonizing of technology and a way of creating greater awareness of the presence of the Land in all our lives.
© Greg A. Hill
Greg A. Hill is a full-time multidisciplinary artist. Born in Fort Erie, Ontario, he is a Kanyen’keháka member of the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. Hill’s practice is primarily in performance, installation and digital imaging and has explored aspects of colonialism, nationalism, and concepts of place and community through the lens of his Kanyen’keháka and settler French ancestry. Recent work delves into concepts of relationship to Land through personal experiences with the Land. He has been exhibiting his work since 1989, with solo exhibitions and performance works across Canada and group exhibitions in North America and Europe. He has also worked collaboratively in performance productions and exhibitions in Canada, the United States, the Czech Republic, Germany, and Hong Kong. In 2003, Hill was a recipient of the K.M. Hunter Foundation Visual Arts Award and an Indspire Foundation Arts award in 2018. His work can be found in public and private collections in Canada and abroad.
